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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5779873" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'll be perfectly honest, in this case, I really don't understand why people don't like what I like.   I have some theories, but they seem wanting.1) They don't like D&D: Some people don't like the game that D&D produces, with its combat/tactical subgame, regular low consequence combat, strong GM authority and narrative control, rules heavy but high abstraction, and near competition between the GM and the players among other things.  They want an entirely different game altogether, and its not surprising that for some other style of game some other style of magic is better suited.  For example, these players might prefer a BSing style of magic, where the players are free to create and narrative virtually any effect within a wide range of possibilities provided by their powers.  Such a system has its advantages, and arguably for some people one of those advantages is it encourages you to play a different sort of game than is usually played in D&D.2) Ignorance: Some people like want they don't in fact have experience with.  The vast majority of their experience is with D&D, and the various limitations and problems with the system have become grating, so that they can only now focus on the negatives in the system and none of the positives.  Lacking perspective, they imagine that there is such a thing as a perfect system without drawbacks or that anything would be better than what they have.  They long for the greener grass in other pastures, which seems just so much richer, varied, and logical than what they have.  Lacking long experience with these other systems, the drawbacks, limitations, and annoyances of these systems just haven't become apparant to them.3) Confusion: Some people seem offended by the system because the fluff has never been explained to them in a way that they can make heads or tails of.  It all seems like a confusing illogical mess for which no coherent explanation can be made.  They get particularly upset about the notion of 'forgetting' a spell that you know, for example, and can't see how this makes any sense at all.4) High Simulation: Some people believe that Vancian magic is in fact a high simulation of the sort of magic found in Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, where it may in fact make sense, but that it makes no sense whatsoever to apply it to other settings.  They believe that not only does the system not strongly emulate the magic found in other stories, but that of all the systems that you could choose, it's the least intuitive sort that matches the fewest number of stories.  Or at the very least, they believe that the magic system should be crafted from the ground up to match the setting and perfectly capture how magic works and is used in whatever specific story you are using as your model.5) Wizard Power Gamers: Some people who hate the Vancian magic system simply hate all the restrictions it tacks on to characters that cast arcane spells - no armor, slow casting times, disruptable, must choose spells ahead of time, limited number of fire and forget slots, spell books, spell components, small number of spells relative to encounters at lower levels, and so forth.  The system doesn't feel right to them because they feel that all these restrictions are arbitrary and reduce their fun.  They'd prefer a system that lets them use magic all the time, in varied ways, to solve problems as they encounter them.  In some cases, part of why they are chaffing at the system is, consciously or unconsciously, because they feel the system reduces their spotlight.  In other cases, it's because they want to play Wizard X from one of their favorite stories, and they don't feel like they can achieve that level of awesomeness mucking around with all these blasted restrictions.6) Percieved lack of balance: The general perception among some gamers is that the Vancian system doesn't achieve it goal of balance very well.  Spellcasters at low levels are too weak; spellcasters at high levels are too strong.The thing is, other than #1 and possibly #6, I think that most of the above reasons are bogus.  Yet, #2-#5 seem to be the most common complaints I hear about Vancian magic, not just in the past, but even in this thread.  It's very frustrating to me to hear these same complaints over and over again when I feel that they are groundless; but I'm self-consciousness enough to consider that if lots of people are saying the same thing maybe it has more merit than it seems.  So, would anyone care to enlighten me on what I'm missing, or even defend #2-#5?</blockquote>

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